Brave Coventry teenager Claire Bewick, who is confined to a wheelchair as a result of a crash caused by a drunken driver, says she feels sorry for the woman responsible.

The 17-year-old Cardinal Wiseman School sixth former told Coventry Crown Court: "My feelings are not hate - if anything I feel sorry for her. I cannot believe that someone with children of her own could do this to me."

Claire, who lives in Walsgrave, was being given a lift back from a part-time job as a fitness instructor when the Ford Fiesta she was travelling in was hit by a Peugeot 206 driven by Sara Bromell.

Mother-of-two Bromell, who lives in Barrow Close, Walsgrave, was today beginning a 17-month jail sentence for dangerous driving which led to a four-car crash in Allard Way, Coventry, just after midnight on October 4 last year

She was also ordered to serve four months concurrently in respect of a separate charge of driving with excess alcohol and was banned from driving for five years.

Judge Ben Nicholls told her she would have to take an extensive driving test before being allowed to get back behind the wheel.

Claire recalls screaming out in fear that she would be burned alive before she was cut free from the back seat of the Fiesta and spent 48 hours in intensive care at Coventry and Warwickshire Hospital.

Her desperately-worried parents Keith and Dorothy Bewick wondered whether she would live or die.

Once her condition stabilised she was airlifted to the Midlands Centre for Spinal Injuries in Oswestry where she was placed in a brace and had to remain immobile for eight weeks.

Even Claire's barrister Sara Pratt came close to tears as she told the Recorder Ben Nicholls, about the teenager's need to have her bodily functions attended to by others.

Miss Pratt said Claire was likely to make some further recovery within the next 15 months to two years but the future was uncertain and surgeons were unsure whether or not she would be able to walk unaided.

After the case Claire said: "I don't feel angry, I just wish it had never happened. I hope to go back into the sixth form in September to study for my A-levels and I'd like to be a nurse."

Her dad Keith made no comment on whether the family would be taking civil action against Bromell. He said: "The judge gave the longest sentence he could but as far as I'm concerned it's still not long enough."